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Apostolate champions care of creation and souls in support of Catholics in rural areas

Michie

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Jerry Laughlin, 46, who took over a fifth-generation farm near Imogene, Iowa, in 1999 and hopes to move more into farming crops for food rather than industrial use, is grateful for his Catholic faith amid the challenges of farm life.

Seeing farming as a sacred profession is exactly what an “epic apostolate” founded 100 years ago aims to foster. Laughlin is considering, with his pastor, Father Lazarus Kirigia, starting a chapter of Catholic Rural Life at his parish.

Built on Archbishop Edwin O’Hara’s vision and philosophy of Catholic rural life, it continues his legacy of helping the rural Church promote U.S. farming and how it can foster virtuous living, while it also grapples with problems the archbishop identified a century ago, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said at a May 8 anniversary event titled “Rejoicing in the Harvest: Celebrating 100 Years of Catholic Rural Life” at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

As founder of what is now Catholic Rural Life (CRL), a national Catholic nonprofit of more than 600 members dedicated to the vitality of American rural life, “Archbishop O’Hara seemed only trying to remind people that there’s something sacramental about country life and that thus it deserves to be treated with dignity and care,” said Dolan, author of a 1992 biography of O’Hara, “Some Seed Fell on Good Ground.

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